Devotees are often heard
to be saying that Shri Sainath Maharaj or Baba is either angry
with them or is not taking care of them as before for reasons
which they fail to understand. Such an attitude indicates
a highly personalized approach. It is a unique feature of
the Sai faith that the devotees get highly emotionally attached
to Him even though he has no more physical presence. Psychologically
they depend a lot on Shri Shirdi Sai for solace, guidance
and more importantly for getting a solution to their day to
day mundane problems. For most of the devotees He is a part
of their lives. They worship Him, they read about Him, they
meditate on Him, they do Naamjaap, they talk about Him a lot
without getting tired and the hold Lungers and even donate
alms to beggars in his name. Some of the ardent devotees even
before taking any food or drink offer it to Baba mentally.
Like children they collect all sorts of photographs, trinkets
and other articles related to Baba. Such activities are a
pointer to the fact that they are ever in search of Baba in
their mind and soul and wish to establish an intense relationship
with Him.

It has been observed that
a devotee when he first enters into the fold of Shri Sai Baba’s
divine and magnanimous personality gets attracted to him in
a very short time which ordinary human reasoning can not explain.
When Baba was there in Shirdi many of the devotees used to
go into a spiritual trance or sort of emotional hype at the
very look at Baba. Such examples find a depiction in Shri
Sai Satcharitra and many other books like Khaparde’s diary
etc. Such was the attraction of the master that when a non
believer like Balasaheb Bhate met Baba for the first time
he just decided to stay back and settle down in Shirdi forever
and later resigned from the government service only to serve
Baba for the rest of his life.

Most of the devotees hold
Baba’s relation with them as their most prized possession.
Baba before departing from his physical embodiment had assured
his devotees that he would continue to protect them from his
invisible abode. He had even said that whenever His devotees
would call him earnestly he would make his presence felt in
some way or the other and also render help to remove their
difficulties. Incidents happening in the lives of most of
the devotees after Baba had taken Samadhi show that Baba continues
to keep his promise.

Thus Shri Sainath Maharaj
continues to render love, assurance, protection and faith
to all his devotees. At times being busy tackling their earthly
problems, the devotees are not in a position to remember Baba
as much as they used to do earlier. In such a situation, they
feel an emotional vacuum in them. Lets just understand this
sense of void in the devotee when the feeling towards the
Sadguru reduces in its intensity through the example of the
sun and the sunlight. The light rays continuously emanate
from the sun and the sunlight falls on earth. When the sky
is clouded the Sun’s rays cannot be seen. Similarly, Baba’s
love and protection towards devotees flows continuously but
some of the devotees do not experience it when their life
is engulfed by worldly clouds.

Sai Nath maharaj often
used to tell devotees at Shirdi in no uncertain terms that
whosoever prays to him intensely and intimately would certainly
receive His grace, help and experience. Once the teacher -
pupil emotional rapport is established, the pupil is bound
to go through a series of alternative emotional experiences.
Sometimes he will feel flooded with loving emotions towards
his master and sometimes he will feel a sense of emotional
void. This bipolar emotional situation is not due to the change
in the mood of the master as perceived by devotees because
a perfect master is a perfect soul. The reason for such a
feeling in the devotee lies in the devotee himself. Hence,
whenever such a situation comes the devotee should not get
bogged down under his own emotional pressures and feel frustrated.
Instead he should pray Baba to stabilize his emotions towards
Him. Every devotee should try to understand that a perfect
master has a thousand things to do for benefit of innumerable
number of devotees at the same time. Therefore to expect that
the emotional impulses of each devotee would be immediately
reciprocated by the master is not the correct approach. Such
an unstable mental state of the devotee indicates a lack of
faith in the master. If the devotee is convinced that the
Sadguru is always busy in helping a large number of His devotees,
at the same time, he (the devotee) should take care to see
that he does not disturb the master for frivolous issues.
The master is best left to carry on His magnificent and universal
work. This understanding on the part of the devotee will make
the master comfortable.

You may have given many different
gifts to your friends and loved ones, but giving a subscription of
"Heritage of Shirdi Sai" magazine would be a unique gift as it
connects the people you love with SADGURU SHIRDI SAI and brings His
blessings with the gift.

Topic
of Discussion feature is intended to initiate useful discussions
on topics related to Shirdi Sai Philosophy and His teachings,
Guru Tradition, Teachings of the Sadguru, the nature
and functions of the Perfect Masters, true devotion, qualification
of a disciple, etc.

Send your poem, article
or drawing on SHIRDI SAI BABA and
the selected ones will be showcased in Heritage of Shirdi
Sai Magazine
and in the Children section on our website. Anybody up to
18 years of age can send in the material.

In order to
ensure that Heritage Of Shirdi Sai sustains itself and is available
to devotees at affordable rates, we do solicit advertisements.
However, in keeping with the magazine’s philosophy and
approach, the advertisements would be displayed as banners and not
creative commercial
product.